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Showing posts from 2023

Pause and Retrospect

I recently enjoyed a swift lunch with an old friend, who was once my roommate during our school years. We had an in-depth conversation about life and career. To my mind, his thought process is far more mature than mine, and his decisions seem more future-oriented. Although our conversation was private, I believe certain insights should be shared with a broader audience. 1. The Role of Luck in Life.  His life experiences have significantly highlighted the impact of luck. While I'm not ready to accept this fully, similar sentiments have been echoed by other successful and wise individuals I've interacted with. I also recently watched an informative video that lucidly explains the 80/20 rule and the principle of luck. The video demonstrates through "agent-based modelling" how the wealthiest person isn't necessarily the most talented but is usually someone of average talent who encounters multiple lucky events in life.  I agreed that luck indeed plays a vital role and

User Journey as a Business Traveler

I went on a business trip to KL for a travel conference. It would be good to relook into the user journey as a business traveller, which might help fine-tune our travel-tech product. As a business traveller, there are fewer "must-do" tasks in the itinerary. The event is pre-defined. 1. Speak at the conference on the topic ChatGPT on the 7th of June: 3:20-3:40. 2. A fireside chat with another Speaker on Innovation on the 8th of June: 2:20 - 4:00. Pre-trip planning: 1. Accommodation.  As the event venue is very convenient in the city centre, there are a lot of accommodations to choose from. As long as there are rooms available, and it is within the business budget, it should be fine.  In the past, I used to book from aggregators, such as trip.com/agoda. But after I understand how the hotel membership works, I choose to book directly from the IHG app as a member. It provides good rates, as well as member points.  There could be little changes to the dates to stay, so accommodati

Rethinking About Businesses

For a considerable duration, my role within the company primarily revolved around resolving immediate crises. It has been quite a while since I seriously reflected on business matters. The initial discussion occurred last Thursday, a day when the majority of the team was operating remotely. I had the opportunity to delve into the company's business strategies with two pivotal team members. We began the dialogue with my intention to develop products that create value. The preliminary question we addressed was, "Who are these products designed for?" I attempted to measure the value through The volume of users utilizing our digital product. The number of businesses employing our B2B solution. However, these benchmarks might be too broad, requiring further specificity for effective execution. Worse, they don't adequately answer the question of "Who". Vinnie suggested that we should focus on the needs of the ultimate customers. For Vinnie, expenditure on children